Aegis Code of Conduct

FAQ

• Q: Up till now I've refused to use a CoC. What do I gain by adopting yours?
  

  A: Without a clear statement, others may assume you’ve implicitly accepted certain responsibilities or expectations - especially around governance, moderation, or ideological signaling - that you never agreed to. By adopting this Code, you explicitly reject those assumptions and protect yourself from being pressured or harassed by individuals or groups seeking to impose them.

• Q: Are codes of conduct a mechanism for turning project governance over to “social justice warriors”?
  

  A: This claim can be (and has been) true for some other Codes of Conduct, but it's safe to say this isn't the case for Aegis CoC, since adopting it means denouncing any governing body over the project, which means there wouldn't be any governance for adopters to hand over.

• Q: Why the 2-Clause version? What's wrong with the original 4-Clause version?

  A: Clause 3 and 4 of the original version could become a catalyst of endless accusations of CoC violation (either based or baseless) which will hinder actual technical progress. While technically relying on the decision and resolution of BDFL is always possible, it would be better if this hindrance never happens in the first place.

  和大怨，必有余怨，安可以爲善？

  When peace is made between great enemies, some enmity is bound to remain undispelled; how can this be considered perfect?

  -- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 79

  Instead of forcing the enmity to be boarded-up behind the facade of "being nice", sometimes it's more virtuous to bring the grievance to a complete resolution; removing Clause 3 and 4 gives the adopters complete autonomy on this topic.

• Q: Why does the code explicitly rejects the formation of a standing moderation body?
  

  A: We reject the model of a standing moderation body for several practical and ethical reasons:

  • First, requiring technically capable contributors to take on moderation duties diverts their time, energy, and cognitive focus away from meaningful development work. This is not only an inefficient use of talent, but also places an unfair emotional and social burden on those individuals.
  • Second, delegating moderation responsibilities to contributors who are less technically proficient creates a harmful power imbalance and introduces systemic risk to the quality and future of projects. When development decisions are subject to the authority of individuals who may not possess the technical insight to prioritize the project's real needs, the long-term integrity of the software is compromised. In such a scenario, core contributors operate under constraints imposed by those who may lack both alignment and capability.

  For these reasons, we reject any structure in which moderation becomes a centralized power. We believe that open source projects shall remains strictly focused on technology, and decisions shall be and continue to be based solely on the merit of ideas and implementations.

• Q: How does the Code protect against identity-based discrimination?
  

  A: Any identity-based discourse is not part of the protected speech under the Code, and can thus be subjected to any kind of punishment without violating the Code as long as the punishments themselves aren't violating the Code (e.g. you can't ban someone from making useful contributions to the project as a punishment). Whether there will be punishments is completely up to the judgement of the moderation team of the place where the discourse happened. The Code itself does not guarantee any level of "safety" or "inclusivity" beyond the meaning stated above.

• Q: How are the Exempt Clauses implied?
  

  A: The Exempt Clauses are implied as follows:

  • The BDFL exempt clause is simply an implication of copyright rather than any other texts, since the copyright owner retains full right over his code (license respecting).
  • Code of Conduct is technically not a technology-related topic and is thus not protected speech; for this reason the development team can choose whatever actions they like.